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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886256">But First, Tea</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/inylan/pseuds/inylan'>inylan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>6000 Years of Love (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), First Kiss, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Tea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:34:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,067</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/inylan/pseuds/inylan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Armageddon has been thwarted. Reality has (mostly) returned to normal. Lunch has been tempted, and accomplished. Yet there are still a few things left to discuss over a cozy cup of tea in the back room of certain bookshop in SoHo.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale &amp; Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>211</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The Good Omens Library</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>But First, Tea</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Honestly, if you're given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don't say 'what kind of tea?”</p><p>― Neil Gaiman</p><hr/><p>“Yes, angel, Darjeeling is fine.”</p><p>Crowley didn’t usually drink tea. He was more of a coffee person (with a splash of cream). Then again, Crowley wasn’t usually this tired. Turns out cancelling the apocalypse and averting permanent celestial wrath required a significant investment of mental energy, and, for only the second time in his six thousand years on Earth, he felt an aching, bone-deep fatigue that could likely only be counteracted with an infusion of the closest form of caffeine (fantastic human discovery, in his opinion).</p><p>So, tea would do.</p><p>He watched from the couch as Aziraphale went through the ritual motions - heating the hot plate for the kettle, measuring out dried leaves, gathering cups for them both (the angel’s go-to wing-handled mug, of course, and a tartan-print one for Crowley that the demon always made sure to roll his eyes at but had come to think of as <em>His Mug</em> so, he let it slide). Crowley eyed the slump of Aziraphale’s shoulders, which were usually held back into perfect posture, but now seemed as if they carried the weight of the world. Which, given that Atlas didn’t actually exist and they were the only two who hadn’t wanted to destroy the place for a pointless war, they did.</p><p>The demon’s hands itched to reach out and touch those shoulders, to ease the distress and share the burden. But now - now wasn’t the right time. They were both lucky to be alive, and Crowley wasn’t sure if either of them had the emotional capacity to process more than that at the moment.</p><p>Hence, again, the tea.</p><p>Companionable silence settled over them, the clink of ceramics the only sound that cut through the book-muffled atmosphere. In true English fashion, the weather had turned on them just as they returned from lunch at the Ritz, and the hushed boil of water combined with the whisper of rain made for a very welcome coziness after the chaos of the past twenty-four hours (week, really).</p><p>The kettle whistled, and Aziraphale filled a china teapot to the brim before placing it on the tray with the rest of the tea setting and bringing it to the sitting area. Crowley smiled to himself - Aziraphale would live through the end of time, and yet Crowley expected the Angel of the Eastern Gate would rather forgo refreshment than ever use bagged tea, no matter the convenience. After giving it a moment to steep, he poured fragrant, steaming liquid into the mugs and handed the tartan one (<em>His Mug</em>) across to Crowley before settling into his favorite plush armchair.</p><p>Crowley sipped his Darjeeling quietly for a moment. Warmth spooled through him, chasing away the fog of exhaustion that clung to his mind. As it did, he noticed the teapot on the tray.</p><p>“Angel, wasn’t that teapot from Queen Victoria?”</p><p>Aziraphale smiled fondly. “It was. Her children were absolutely horrid and she deserved some kindness amidst the politics, so we took tea together whenever I was in town. She sent this to me before she passed.”</p><p>Crowley leaned forward, slender fingers tracing the delicately painted flowers. “Yellow daffodils and blue irises - eternal life, faith, and hope.” He peered over his glasses. “Did she know?”</p><p>“She never said anything, but I expect she had her suspicions. Victoria was observant, she would have noticed my lack of aging.” The angel gave a soft huff of laughter, warmth suffusing his gaze. “You know, Crowley, in all the years I’ve had this teapot, no one else has ever picked up on that detail. I should have expected you’d be well-versed in the language of flowers.”</p><p>Crowley drew his hand back and secured it around his mug, where he could excuse away his suddenly damp palms with warm ceramic. There was something infusing Aziraphale’s gaze that hadn’t been there before, something deeper, wider than the platonic affection and friendly amusement that usually sparkled in those gorgeous pools of blue. It made his heart beat with an intensity that could have been anxiety or excitement, or both - and he wanted neither right now.</p><p>With little regard to the quality of the liquid in his cup (even Crowley knew that you were supposed to savor a first flush), he downed the rest of his drink and stood, reaching for the teapot just to give himself something to focus on other than those eyes. Caffeine intake or no, he was still too raw from, well, everything (<em>losing your best friend, regaining your best friend, averting Armageddon, switching corporations, thwarting Heaven, avoiding death by Holy Water</em>) for his self-control to remain fully intact.</p><p>But of course, Aziraphale was the utmost host, and no guest of his was going to pour their own tea. Crowley should have known better.</p><p>“Sit down, dear, let me pour you another cup.”</p><p>Against his better instincts, he sat.</p><p>Maybe it was the exhaustion - usually his focus was sharp, quick - but at the moment the smallest things were distracting him. Like the pale flesh of Aziraphale’s wrist as he poured, the map of blue veins near the surface of his skin, the soft dusting of golden hairs across the back of his hand. Crowley swallowed, trying to force the heat creeping up his neck back down before it became noticeable, knowing that he was failing miserably.</p><p>Six millenia and he still reacted like a teenager whenever Aziraphale drew near. What a <em>sap</em> he was.</p><p>“You all right, Crowley?” <em>Crap</em>, he had noticed. “If you’re warm I can open the-”</p><p>“You’re so gentle, angel.” <em>What the FUCK</em>, his mind screamed. Where the hell had that come from? “Uh, with the tea. The teapot. Over a century, and not a scratch, the glaze is still in perfect condition.”</p><p>Aziraphale raised an eyebrow at him, understandably not believing Crowley’s incredibly transparent save. “Thank you, I try to take the utmost care of my things.” The wry look in his eye softened somewhat as he continued, “When you live as long as we do, not everything lasts. For the precious things that do, it’s worth the extra care.”</p><p>In that moment, Crowley was grateful that his corporation didn’t technically need oxygen because he definitely forgot how to breathe. Despite his best efforts, a sliver of hope blossomed in his chest. He stubbornly ignored it, persistent as it was.</p><p>Aziraphale placed the teapot back on the table, then joined Crowley on the couch, sitting so that he was angled towards the taller man. With a sense of purpose, as if he were going down a checklist, he took the mug from Crowley’s hand and set it aside, then reached for his sunglasses before he paused.</p><p>“May I remove these for a moment?” he asked, a note of uncertainty in his voice, as if he didn’t know that he could do <em>whatever he wanted</em> to Crowley and Crowley wouldn’t deny him a thing.</p><p>Crowley reached up to take them off, but Aziraphale put out a hand to stop him. “No, let me, please.”</p><p>Manicured fingers lifted the smokey lenses from his face, and Crowley felt uncomfortably bare. He shouldn’t - this was Aziraphale, his best friend, his oldest companion. He rarely bothered to wear the glasses when they were alone anymore. They had shared wine and stories and secrets across time.</p><p>Not <em>every</em> secret, though. There was one that Crowley had barely admitted to himself, much less to anyone else; especially not to the man whose thigh was now inches from his.</p><p>“I owe you an apology.”</p><p>Those were not the words Crowley was expecting to hear. “You- what?”</p><p>Aziraphale held his gaze. “For what I said at the bandstand. Of course we’re friends, we’ve always been friends of some sort or another. But I wasn’t ready to leave Earth.”</p><p>“I know, I know, I go too fast for you, angel.” The sliver of hope shrunk a little.</p><p>“No, that’s not it.” Aziraphale leaned forward, placing one hand on Crowley’s knee. “You have no idea how much I wanted to say yes in that moment, to run away from all the choosing sides and bloodshed and questions where there were no right answers. But I couldn’t leave the humans - all the work that we’ve done - to be obliterated. If there was a chance for us to save our home, I needed to try.”</p><p>Crowley didn’t miss the use of “our.”</p><p>“Sure, we could have made a home among the stars, but so much of what we love is here.”</p><p>Or the use of “we.”</p><p>“If I’m going to spend an eternity with you, I wanted it to be surrounded by all the things we love most, even if some of them are fleeting.”</p><p>At that, said sliver of hope became an all-encompassing wave that Crowley <em>knew</em> he couldn’t keep from showing on his face, so he just stopped trying.</p><p>He had to swallow to get his voice to work again. “Eternity?”</p><p>“Eternity, dear.” Aziraphale’s eyes crinkled at the edges. “You didn’t think we were going to avert the end of the world just to spend the rest of existence apart, did you?”</p><p>Crowley knew he was staring slack-jawed, which was not exactly how he had imagined this going in the hundreds of thousands of times he had imagined this scenario over the years. He had envisioned something much more suave, with smooth words and maybe candlelight and far more wooing, but really, it was actually happening so who was he to complain?</p><p>“Aziraphale,” he cleared his throat, wrestling his racing thoughts into some semblance of a sentence. “I want to make sure I understand, that we’re absolutely clear here. Are you saying that you want to be … more than friends?”</p><p>Aziraphale’s hands reached out to grasp Crowley’s. “Yes, you daft demon, I’m saying that I love you.”</p><p>That cleared that up.</p><p>“Angel.” Crowley’s voice was rough, his breath coming quickly. “Unless you say otherwise, I’m going to kiss you.”</p><p>Crowley wasn’t sure if he had ever seen a full-on smirk on the cherubic face before; either way, he was wearing one now. It went annoyingly well with the tartan bow tie.</p><p>“Well, get on with it then.”</p><p>In the end, they both reached for each other at the same time, though any specific detail was completely lost in the release of emotion that Crowley had been holding at bay for longer than he could remember. In time Crowley would come to memorize the feel of soft lips on his, strong hands threading through his hair, pulling him down to deepen kisses that were full of warm breath and velvet tongue and desire. But try as he might, every time he looked back on that first kiss, all he could remember was an overwhelming sense of love and happiness and wonder and <em>right</em>.</p><p>Crowley didn’t know how long the kiss lasted, or why they finally drew apart. None of that mattered, not really.</p><p>“Your tea is going to go cold,” Aziraphale said softly.</p><p>“Bugger the tea, angel.”</p><p>“Language, dear.”</p><p>“I know several, which do you prefer I use?”</p><p>Aziraphale looked heavenward with amused exasperation. “Six thousand years building to this moment and yet the serpent is as wily as ever.”</p><p>Crowley raised a hand to Aziraphale’s cheek, sobering. “Six thousand years, and I hope you realize that I’ve loved you for every single one of them.”</p><p>A blush stole over Aziraphale’s cheeks. For their second kiss, it was clearly the angel who drew the demon down to him, love radiating from him in a way that Crowley swore made the whole room glow. Not that he would have noticed, really, not when the only thing that truly mattered in the universe was already in his arms.</p><p>Time, as much as it had any meaning to two entities that existed outside of and within it simultaneously, became even more irrelevant in that moment. A bird could have sharpened its beak on the mountain at the end of the universe a dozen times, and neither being would have registered the flit of wings, much less the passage of centuries. For, as much as they had avoided the end of the world, they had also found the beginning of theirs; and for the first time in time, they had no doubt that on that seventh day in Eden, they had gotten it absolutely right.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I cannot begin to thank the trio of Keya, Sheva, and our Ineffable Dungeon Master. They brought me back into fandom with Ineffable Husbands, shared memes and theories and ideas, and let me take a throwaway comment about tea and a kiss and turn it into this. Here's to a shared love of storytelling - may it continue from now until Armageddon.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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